Rinehart's children made secret deed

The country's richest person, Gina Rinehart, may have had to pay out her estranged children's high-interest loan and hand over millions of dollars from the family empire following revelations of a secret deed signed months after three of her four children launched legal action against her.

The deed, obtained by Fairfax Media, shows Rinehart's daughter Hope Welker signed a secret deed with her half-brother and half-sister, John Hancock and Bianca Rinehart, in January last year that agreed to pay them two-thirds of any settlement payment she received from her mother.

According to emails revealed in Fairfax Media earlier this week, Gina Rinehart offered Hope $300 million to settle and ''walk away'' soon after legal action was taken against her in September 2011 by three of her four children, Hope, John and Bianca, to remove her as trustee of a multibillion-dollar family trust. Her youngest daughter Ginia sided with her mother.

Hope recently reached a confidential settlement with her mother after officially withdrawing from the legal action she spearheaded in the NSW Supreme Court. Under the terms of the secret deed between the children, Hope will have had to split that settlement amount equally with John and Bianca, after she has paid all fees and loans taken to fund their joint legal action against their mother.

Hope approached her mother in December last year to settle after her marriage broke down and she was unable to pay bills.

It is not known if the original $300 million settlement offer was taken off the table and a lesser deal struck. It is also not known if Mrs Rinehart knew about the secret deed or will challenge it.

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A message sent to Hope on November 26, 2011, by Ryan Johnston (Ginia's fiance) predicts that the original $300 million offer might not be in perpetuity.

''I'm not sure what you've been offered exactly as I'm not privy to all that but my suggestion is to get as much as you're being offered, go buy two massive houses, a jet and five cars and send your kids to the school you want. Much better than trying to make a deal when you are out of money and at your weakest time to negotiate … Call me whenever you want and I'm doing this under the radar so let's keep it that way'', Johnston said.

John Hancock said on Friday: "Was Ginia's fiance, Ryan Johnston, right when he said to Hope not to negotiate when she had run out of money and totally desperate, as 'they' will squeeze her? One thing my mother knows how to do well is squeeze a hard bargain - and that's a compliment."

Ginia wrote to Hope on November 22, 2011, saying she should take the money her mother had offered and walk away. ''Not that you deserve a penny as you have never worked a day in your life but if you cannot live with 300 million dollars for doing absolutely nothing then you really are disgusting,'' Ginia said.